This invention relates to a complete or full complement taper roller bearing by which is meant a taper roller bearing without a bearing cage and having a full complement of rollers. The invention also discloses a method of assembling such a full complement bearing.
Taper roller bearings are well known as a roller bearing element. The normal design shown in FIGS. 1, 2 and 5 consists of an inner ring or cone, an outer ring or cup, rollers and a cage. The purpose of the cage is to guide the rollers and retain them in place in the absence of the cup, for example during assembly of the bearing. In an assembled arrangement the inner ring or cone, rollers and the cage form one unit whilst the outer ring is the other component by which the bearing can be mounted to shafts or into housings.
In the common design of taper roller bearings the axial guidance of the rollers is achieved by means of a recess on the inner ring or cone which in combination with the cage keeps the rollers in position and guides them to the center of the cone.
However this common design of taper roller bearing is prone to failure due to deformation of the cage, cage ring compression or cage pocket wear, examples of which are illustrated in FIGS. 2a, 2b and 2c respectively.
A full complement taper roller bearing in a well known O arrangement for shafts is known from U.S. Pat. No. 606,635. However, in this known configuration axial location and guidance of the rollers is by means of two axially spaced apart recesses provided on each of the taper roller bearing surfaces which engage with complimentary spaced apart ribs which project radially outwardly of the bearing surface or track of the radially inner ring or cone. The configuration of ribs and recesses on the bearing surfaces disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 606,635 both reduces the load carrying capacity of the bearing by reducing the available roller surface and increases the risk of premature failure by wear and breakage of the ribs.
Accordingly it is an object of the present invention to provide a full complement taper roller bearing which overcomes or at least mitigates the above mentioned problems.